Can IBM be the go-to vendor for Industrial IoT Computing?

IBM kicked its Internet of Things (IOT) initiative into overdrive this week by committing $3 billion to the formation of a dedicated business unit.  Some might think that IBM is relatively late to the IoT party.  GE, for example, went all-in with its Minds + Machines event in 2012.  Truth is though, IBM has been active in this area for a few years, through its Smarter Planet initiative, amongst others.  This week's announcement essentially formalizes the IoT initiative - and $3 billion is a pretty hefty amount of wood to put behind the arrow.

The question for avid ARC watchers is "Can IBM become a dominant player in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market?"  I think the answer to that is a resounding "most likely".  IBM has developed (e.g. Bluemix) and acquired (e.g. SoftLayer) a sizable portfolio of cloud technology.  And for IBM especially, the cloud is going to be a significant advantage.  Anyone who's ever worked in enterprise software sales as I have - or had the dubious pleasure of being on the receiving end of it - will be familiar with the IBM bus.  IBM has plenty of buses, such as the WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, and the Integration Bus Advanced.  But the bus I'm referring to is the mythical bus that IBM needed to bring its team to any sales call.  The "IBM bus" alludes to the common perception that IBM often needed to integrate several products in order to deliver the desired solution for a customer.  Therefore, a bus was required to bring all the relevant product experts to the sales call.  There's both good and bad in that of course.  But it's an objection that most sales competitors would try to use, justified or not.

Suddenly though, with growing trust in the cloud, that impressive breadth of technology becomes a huge advantage.  Now that software is less likely to be installed on-premise, the fully custom integration scenario FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that IBM competitors used to rely on is increasingly irrelevant.  Instead, IBM just does all the integration ahead of time and delivers it through the cloud - just like it has with Bluemix.  As a result, IBM's Industrial IoT customers will be able to enjoy the full range of functionality on offer, without any of the integration hassle.